Transcripts: Falcons vs. Broncos

Head coach Mike Smith and quarterback Matt Ryan were pleased with Monday night's effort in a 27-21 win over the Broncos at the Georgia Dome

Head coach Mike Smith

Opening statement:

“We needed everyone in that locker room tonight to get the job done. I’m really proud of the performance we turned in tonight, especially on the defensive side of the ball being able to turn the ball over there in the first half. Those four turnovers were huge. We were able to put a lot of pressure on the quarterback for the majority of the game. Denver fought back and we knew they would. They are a really well coached football team. We knew that their quarterback was going to make some plays for them and he was able to do that.”

On what worked with the pass defense:

“We were able to disguise our coverages very well. That’s something we said all week that we had to do. You have to make sure that you don’t give the quarterback a pre-snap read and we were able to that early in the ball game and made some throws that we were able to convert and make plays on the ball.”

“We really did a nice job, I thought for the most part catching the football. We had a couple of drops, but like always we’d like to have back. Roddy made some big plays and third down catches. Him and Matt were really in sync in the game tonight. We made the play at the end of the ball game when we had to run it that I’ve been talking about. We’ve got to be able to run the football when we want to run it. I don’t know if we ran it as efficiently as we would’ve liked, but when we had to run it we were able to run it and that’s what I’m eluding to when I talk about running the football.”

“William had a very productive ball game. He seemed to be all over the field. Until I get to watch the tape we won’t really get an opportunity to watch the tape because we’re going to move on to the San Diego Chargers here in about ten hours. We’re going to move on, but William made some plays out there on the field. I was really proud of the guys for the way they played tonight. They played together. There was some adversity that occurred in the ball game and we were very resilient as a team. When we do that you have a chance to win.”

On all the reversals and bad spots in the first half:

“You’re going to have, through the course of the game. I made a lot of mistakes tonight. Everyone that was involved in that football game makes mistakes and that’s part of the game. That was the longest first quarter that I’ve ever been involved in. It looked like we were going to have a four hour game, but it was a very long first quarter. We kept a bunch of people up late, and I bet we’ll have a bunch of people not showing up for work tomorrow.”

On the crowd being active early:

“It was huge. We got a procedure penalty right off the bat there in the first quarter. Our fans were fantastic. There’s never a game that we’ve had since we’ve been here that our fans aren’t knowledgable about in terms of when to cheer and when not to cheer. You get those procedural penalties and those are positive yards for our defense."

On all of the nickel play tonight:

“We felt like that gave us the best matchup. The plan that we went into it whether they were in 11 (personnel), which is three wideouts or two tight ends, we felt like their second tight end and their third wide receiver were the same type of player. We matched them with a different personnel group and I’ll let you guys chime up how many times we did it.”

Quarterback Matt Ryan

On running out the clock on the last drive of the game:

“We had a couple of opportunities to get some first downs, but until the last drive we didn't have any success. That last drive our guys really stepped up, our offensive line did a great job allowing us to run the football. They opened up holes for Michael Turner. We converted on that big third down. Third and five, Julio [Jones} ran a great crossing route and it's hard to miss a big target like him. We sent in our big personnel on the next first down and they opened up a big hole for Michael Turner and I think everyone was fired up when that happened. That's definitely the way you want to close out a game like that. We had some more opportunities to get it done, but ultimately we got it done when we needed to.”

“I was initially looking for Mike Johnson; I thought maybe they had let him run free. Mike's an athlete and I think they knew it too. It was a really well designed play, we had Tony [Gonzalez] run to the back of the end zone pretty much wide open. It was great”

On the play of the defense:

"Our defense did a great job turning the ball over tonight. They had three picks early which was huge. We need to do a better job offensively, I think, of scoring touchdowns off those turnovers. I think that's an area in the first two weeks that we need to improve upon. We'll address that this week and we'll try and get better, but ultimately we did enough to get the win."

On the way the offense operated tonight:

"It felt really good; I think Dirk [Koetter] did a great job of getting guys in good positions to run wide open. We had a couple of good play actions where we got the ball down field and created some explosives and that was big for us."

On gaining extra motivation playing against Peyton Manning:

"I've been around in this league long enough to know that its tough to win regardless of who you're playing. When you're playing against a Hall of Fame quarterback it's even tougher. I don't need much added motivation. I think week-to-week we prepare really well and we're ready to go. We knew it was going to be a tough challenge."

On maintaining focus despite the game running long:

"We just kept playing; as a player that's all you can do. We keep playing, and try and execute the best you can without worrying about the things that you can't control."

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